Film for the Weekend: The 1989 World Rowing Championships in Bled

This film showcases a number of the most important coaches in our sport today during their athletic careers, including Paul Reedy, now LW2x coach with Team GB and chief coach of London Rowing Club, in the AUS M2x, Boston University head coach Thomas Bohrer in the USA M4-, and Robin Williams, now Team GB LM4- coach, in the GB LM8+ (and, funny enough, his biography has been conflated with that of one of his athletes, LRC's Rob Williams, on the FISA website–scroll down to where the current LM4- stroke was, evidently, winning silver at age 3), as well as current Pac-12 rivals Yaz Farooq of Stanford and UCLA's Amy Fuller Kearney, both of whom were competing at their first senior world championships in the USA W8+. The footage is high quality, and includes a great deal of slow motion, providing a very thorough look at the technique employed, as well as serving to emphasize the raw power and dynamism of our sport. These world championships took place at an extremely pivotal point in world history–Bled was at that time part of Yugoslavia, and Germany was still divided (shortly afterward, the wall fell in Berlin, as the video's creator, Mike Nicholson of Australia, notes in the commentary). Also of note–Sir Steve Redgrave finished second in the M2- and fifth in the M2+ at this regatta (having come first in the M2- and third in the M2+ at the 1988 Olympic Games, and first and second in the respective events in 1987).

More to come through the weekend as Rowing News heads to Austin for the Heart of Texas Regatta (stay tuned to Twitter, @rowingrelated and @RowingNews, for updates)!